About this Roundtable: The Disasters Roundtable coordinates the Academies discussions with the Federal government and others on disaster reduction issues of domestic and international importance. The Roundtable's work reflects a long-standing and continuing obligation to focus scientific, technical, and public policy expertise on efforts to mitigate human suffering, disruption, destruction, and economic burdens of disasters. This workshop is an opportunity to discuss the timely issue of federal investment. Each year significant investments are made by federal agencies and other sectors in scientific and technological activities designed to improve the nation's resilience to disaster. These investments cut across such areas as hazard and disaster prediction, observation, and communication, and involve many types of hazard agents, including earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and terrorist actions.

This workshop will provide an opportunity to take a holistic look at the challenges hazards pose to the nation. Federal experts, joined by other specialists and stakeholders in the field, will discuss where the nation currently stands in combating risks to lives and property and where future investments can be made that have the greatest potential for reducing disaster vulnerability throughout the country.

The U.S. Subcommittee on Disaster Reduction (SDR), an element of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy comprised of Federal agencies with missions relevant to disaster reduction, was requested to identify Grand Challenge investments in science and technology related to disaster reduction in the 21ist century. A Grand Challenge is a fundamental problem facing science and technology whose solution can be advanced by coordinated and sustained investments in research, education, communication, and the application of knowledge and technology. Strategic investments directed at such problems offer the promise of producing significant reductions in the loss of life and property from natural, technological and human-induced disasters. The workshop will provide a venue for the Federal SDR agencies to receive important in put from other stakeholders, including those in the private sector and academia, on their Grand Challenge strategic planning.